The Blight of Strong Drink

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 25, 1912

The Blight of Strong Drink

FROM a speech by Hon. R. P. Hobson in the House of Representatives, on Feb. 2, 1911, we quote the following paragraph for its striking statistics:—

A scientist having investigated more than 800 cases, announces that of children born to alcoholic parents, one of every five will be hopelessly insane; one out of three will be hysterical or epileptic; more than two thirds will be degenerate. Another scientist located ten large families in which both parents were alcoholic, and in the same localities, with other conditions practically the same, ten large families in which both parents were total abstainers. Of the 57 children of the alcoholic parents, 16 were deformed, 6 were epileptic, 6 were idiotic, 25 were non-viable; only 17 per cent were normal, 83 per cent being abnormal. Of the 61 children of the total-abstaining parents, 10.5 per cent only were abnormal, and these chiefly backward, while 89.5 per cent were absolutely normal. Seventeen per cent were normal in the one case and 89.5 per cent in the other case, a difference of 72.5 per cent. Parents by becoming alcoholic will sacrifice three fourths of their children on the altar of drink.

This is a tremendous toll paid in the vain attempt to appease an unnatural appetite. With the continuous increase in the use of intoxicating drink in the world and the ingenious methods adopted by the liquor interests to enmesh the children in the toils of this destroyer, the prospect for the betterment of the race is not an encouraging one. There is no evil with which the human race is afflicted that brings so many other evils in its train, as does this one.